Before It Rained
by Acerbitas
Summary: Roy must learn the price of violence and war, as well as struggle with his affections for a man hundreds of miles away. Upon returning home he becomes increasingly depressed and begins to contemplate the temptations of dark alchemy and suicide. RoyxHughes
1. Chapter 1

Ah, a non-Gravitation story! I do hope some people who have read some of my other stories will read this one as well. But if not, I forgive you!

**Hughes:** Throughout this story, Hughes is very mysterious and sometimes seems to be acting a little out of character. _Please_ reserve your judgements until the end!

**Warnings:** episode 25 spoilers in the last chapter, male/male, descriptive violence, prostitution (um...no, it's not one of "those" stories), angst

**Before It Rained**  
Chapter One

"Yes, yes, yes!" Maes waved his free left hand in a careless motion, an ecstatic grin gracing his features. He had been on the phone for a good hour or two, and was now rocking back and forth in his ancient chair. "Yes! This is fantastic! We've got to do it! …Mad? Why should he get mad?" The chair clomped to the floor. "It's just a harmless joke. I'm sure he'll be thrilled by our genius! No, no, nobody will get hurt! We'll be extra careful. What? No, no, not like the _last_ time. Hello? …Hello? Silly? …Are you serious? Haha! I can't believe he walked right by! That's classic…"

I had amassed all the stones into a neat pile around where I was sprawled in the dirt, and had now moved on to arranging them into all my memorized alchemy circles. I glanced up at Hughes, allowing myself to briefly scan his long nose and arched eyebrows, the glasses that cut a perfect rectangle around his eyes. Turning my attention back to my self-employed task, I made a few more circles before kicking the stones so that they scattered forward across the limited area of the communications tent.

"Hey, Silly? I think they might cut us off soon. …Yeah. Yeah, I kinda used up all my time… I know… I'll come down to your camp soon… Maybe next Sunday…yeah…when we're not running around like idiots… Uh huh. …Uh huh. Yep. See you soon!" The phone was slammed onto its hook with a triumphant crash. "This is great, Roy!" Maes informed me needlessly. "We're brilliant! But I can't tell. Knowing you you'll go rat out our top secret plans." He cocked his finger at his head took a shot with an ironic grin. His carefully extracted black lock flopped to the side.

Ignoring his on-target assumption, I feigned boredom with a sigh. "You were on the phone a long time. Weren't we going to go to the mess hall together today?" I turned my gaze back towards his face, watching as his eyes widened, almost gently.

The gentleness passed. "…Ahh, I have a date! With a girl from town!" Grinning hopefully, Maes gave me an enormous wink. He shot to his feet and exclaimed, "Let me tell you about her! She has big brown eyes, very cute, by the way. Always smiling. Adorable smile! Likes my jokes! Can you believe it? A girl who likes my jokes!"

"Oh. That's cool." Wind ruffled the blue tent, sending it billowing against my back. I stood up, shoved my hands into my pockets and stared at a far corner of the tent, not willing to expose my eyes to him anymore. I knew that he had no contract with me; I knew that nothing had even happened between us besides friendly, thoughtless hugs. He would wrap his strong arm around me and grin, sometimes grabbing my nose and laughing. At first I had thought that meant something special: I had thought those moments were reserved just for me. Coming from a conservative, solemn family, I had always believed bodily contact was something that only occurred when people were very close. But Maes viewed everything differently—the world revolved at a slightly different angle. He always told me not to take everything so seriously, and I watched him with a mixture of envy and bemusement. "That's fine. I'll go alone then." Keeping my eyes focused on the ground, I hunched my back and stomped out of the tent in a nonverbal expression of moodiness and depression.

I heard Maes start to follow me. "We'll…go together tomorrow, okay?" His voice had lost its fervor and showed genuine concern, but it was almost familial, like when I used to have silent wars with my mother until she gave in and became gentle and desperate.

"I'm not mad, Maes," I told him, only half-lying, voice detached.

As I slouched away, I heard him mutter softly, "Eh, of course you're not."

Turning into the mess tent, I gazed on the raucous crowd, scanning them, disinterested. Havoc waved at me from the back, his hand flying from side to side over his multiple companions' heads like a signal. Acknowledging him with a brief jerk of my hand, I wandered in the direction of the food. My eyes turned towards an empty end of one of the tables, tempted. Havoc's signal went up again into the air, this time more agitated. Giving him a smile that didn't match my clenched jaws, I sat down next to one of his well-toned companions, who held some vague familiarity about him. I'd probably sat next to him before, or had duty with him. Slamming his hand into my back, the man roared to the entire assembly: "The Flame Alchemist has arrived!"

"Hey." I murmured, feeling annoyance pace swiftly in my chest like an agitated marching band.

"Roy!" Havoc gave me a sly grin, kicking a booted foot against my leg. "You aren't going to believe this!" He leaned in closer to me, shoulders spiking upwards as he leaned his arms on the table. "I snuck to the girls camp today…and I got some lovin'! She was hot too, man! Jealous?" His wild smirk widened, eyes shining with some sort of lasting pleasure.

I stared into my food, thinking of Maes meeting his girl, taking her hand, smiling a special smile just for her. Realizing I was scowling, I muttered, "You know that's against regulations."

Havoc sighed and slid his arms off the table, giving one of the men a knowing look. "You can be so boring, you know? I bet you're just jealous."

I shrugged, forcing the bland mixture into my unresponsive mouth.

"He _is_ jealous." Havoc concluded confidentially, poking his elbow into the man seated beside him. "So Roy, which girl do you want from the camp? Hope I didn't take yours!"

I tried to remember a single face in the long lines of female recruits. Stabbing my meal fiercely with my fork, I examined the wood table's contents as if they would give me some miraculous revelation. "There is this one girl with blonde hair…" I suggested hazily. "She has big boobs."

"Big boobs, huh? Always thought you went for the flat-chested goody-girls. You know, the ones that take desk jobs and wear glasses." Sticking a cigarette in his quirking mouth, he lit it with a match from his ragged pocket.

"She has glasses…" I edited my imaginary woman, wishing desperately for the empty seat in the corner which I had passed over. I shoveled the beans into my mouth, ready to make an escape.

The conversation turned to how obnoxious Havoc's sergeant was, and how they all had to get up at five the next day. Someone stuck in a snide comment about how alchemists didn't have to do anything but learn symbols; I felt no anger, and didn't comment. He was right.

"I'm going to study." Grasping my plate, I stomped off without acknowledging their teasing farewells.

* * *

I studied for about an hour two, sometimes taking walks past Maes' unoccupied tent. For a good while I resisted the urge to sit myself outside of it, then gave in and amused myself by sketching new alchemy circles in the dirt. The moon climbed above the tents. Little beacons of human existence, jutting up from the barren plane. My eyelids drooped. 

When I woke up Maes was standing over me, his face a mixture of distress and tolerance. A city man who had just found his dog with a rabbit in its mouth. "You were waiting for me." His voice was tinged with some unknown feeling, something that didn't seem to fit. Something sad.

"I just…" I eyed my latest circle, and then timidly looked up again.

His lips curved upwards. "Come in."

"Okay."

Lighting his oil lamp with a careful diligence, he fished around in his pocket for awhile before extracting a cigarette and feeding it on the growing flame. "Ishbal is ugly. It's getting uglier." I watched the shadows and the fire fight each other across Maes' strangely somber features. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth. "They won't pull out. I know they won't pull out." Face mournful, he turned towards my seated figure, eyes scanning me like I might suddenly fade on him. "I should have gone with you today."

I shrugged, a disorderly worry gnawing my heart. "We can just…go tomorrow. I said I wasn't mad." Maes had become wrong, serious, frightening.

He tried to smile, mouth working fiercely. The cigarette was snuffed on the table. "…They're all going to die. They're sending them there and they're all going die. All those boys are going to die and they're going to come back in bags, if they come back at all." For a moment he just stood there, silhouetted in the wavering light. A grimace cut a jagged line in his mouth. Then, he flipped the light off, and darkness consumed him.

Maes' chapped lips pressed against my neck, and I tensed with shock. I felt his tongue brush against me, then his lips again, moist. His hands fumbled clumsily through my hair and around my head, like he needed to feel all of me and there just wasn't enough time. Overlong nails pressed into my back then quickly receded as they clutched my arms. I tried to think as I accepted his oddly inexperienced touch, but then the adrenaline raced too fast through my jump-started chest. Exploding fire engulfed me. I stretched quivering fingers around the back of his head; he kissed my forehead, my nose, and finally my lips. His hair was greasy. Maes smelled of both sweat and woman's perfume, of shaving cream and some sort of steak. The girl was irrelevant. Letting out a shaky breath, I drew my arms around his neck. He pulled my body tightly against his own, half like we were brothers, half like we were lovers.

"You're a good man, Roy." Hesitation and guilt in his fingers, he released me gently. "I want you to get some sleep."

I told him I'd see him tomorrow, a school-girl stutter in my voice. I left. The next morning the State Alchemists were transferred to the Ishbalian front.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Hope you come back for the next chapter! 


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

Tonight, it rained. Torrents attacked me as I sloshed through the mud, shoulders hunched against the violent gale. We had been burning the dead tonight. Us and them: piled together in a grisly union of discarded flesh. Bloody rivets snaked and swirled through the puddles.

The tents were miserable. No longer for the living, but the half-dead. I wondered where my soul was, and what it had been doing when I raised my hand to the sky and snapped my fingers. I had snapped my fingers, and they had died. They had all died.

The smell was repulsive, and the great fire flickered lower, lower, and then expired. The half-burned pyre's fumes clung wickedly to my nose, bringing back the few seconds that I could remember over and over again. Red eyes melted down the wax face of a screaming child. The pregnant woman with blood crawling down her chin: I saw her, almost before me. Her cheeks were paled in death. I didn't know why I was here anymore, and I didn't know what they had done so wrong. I felt disgusting. My gloves felt tainted, the pattern I had so carefully knit upon them a spiral of death.

The stone pulsed on my ring. To throw it into the dirt, smash it beneath my feet, would feel like the ultimate defiance. I wanted to stand up on top of the scattered and looted medical kits, rip it off, and scream. I didn't know what I wanted to scream, but I knew I wanted to scream something. Maybe a wordless scream, that meant something just for me.

They told me I was meant to be here. Told me I should be proud.

The desire grew stronger. I suppressed it, and stomped my feet harder into the muddy mess. Rainwater caught my hair and tangled it. I was soaked, and the military raincoat no longer assisted me.

Someone clapped a hand onto my shoulder and I started, automatic reflexes wiring for survival. Havoc grinned at me, but it was a strange, twisted smile. "They got some food in," he said. "Go over there, and get some."

For a moment my throat didn't work. The military had drilled into me that I was right, doing what I did. But I didn't feel right. Did Havoc feel right? His face looked gaunt, but his eyes twinkled. They weren't as bright as before.

"Right," I said.

"Good." Before clomping off, he slipped three cigarettes into my palm.

I didn't normally smoke, but I was going to tonight.

* * *

The gun felt worn and familiar in my fingers, its cool surface bringing me a minimal, strange comfort. I cocked it. They stared at me. I looked at his shoes, her hips. I did not want to look at their eyes. They were proud and tall, standing there. So sure of themselves. They knew they were right. 

Terror froze the blood in my veins. Every nerve shuddered, every muscle went tight. Somehow, this was worse. This was much worse than the pregnant woman.

I was wrong. I knew I was wrong.

"Just shoot, soldier." He said gently. And his lips turned upwards.

Just shoot.

Just shoot.

I just shot.

But I couldn't just shoot that next week, when I should have. I deserved it. I deserved it.

I had been wrong.

I quivered. The stain on the floor haunted my senses. I could almost see them standing there. They were so proud.

Mr. Rockbell. Who were you, Mr. Rockbell? What did you want to do with the life I stole from you? Did you want to see the girl in the picture?

The girl in the picture was just one more life. I've ruined so many.

But she was a face. A face among the red-eyed masses.

I was soiled and wrong. I just did it. I always just did it. I should have thought more. I should have done everything right. I make so many stupid mistakes. I was stupid. I was stupid.

The gun felt even more familiar than before. I shoved it harshly under my chin; the cool metal bit my flesh painfully. Panic exploded in my brain. Shivery hysteria crawled like a thousand ants inside my chest.

It's time to die. Mr. Rockbell, it's time for _me_ to die.

"_Just shoot, soldier."_

The only time I couldn't just shoot. I was a coward. Not a lieutenant.

I'm not Roy Mustang, the war hero.

Don't let them say I was a hero.

I'm no hero. I'm nothing. A man in a military uniform, drenched in oozing blood and a foot deep in the ashes of the fallen.

* * *

On the twenty-first of August, Maes sent me a letter. It shuddered in my fingers as I clutched it, weak paper fluttering in the wind. I ripped it open hastily, losing one of the two photographs enclosed to the mess of mud below. The picture that survived was Maes and his new girlfriend, smiling merrily from the steps of Central. 

The world they lived in was alien to me now. Strange and surreal. It was from some other world: a picture from a geography book. Surely people didn't live like that, so happy and carefree. I couldn't remember this world, this world where nobody died. This was a world where everybody was youthful and happy and lighthearted. I stared at the girl, noting her friendly gaze and beautiful, rosy cheeks. Clean. Pretty. Not scarred, dirty, and disgusting. Not standing in mud, drenched in rain water and sweat.

He looked so happy. They both did. My chest heaved, overpowering desire filling chest with a terrible ache. I wanted to cry. His lips had met mine. I remembered his touch. I remembered.

On the back, he had written "When you get home, get yourself a girl like this one!" Did he remember too, or was my brain shuddering into disjointed madness?

The letter detailed his date with the girl, annoying people at Central, and the problems of not enough free coffee. I wanted to be with him, complaining about that coffee. That obnoxious coffee shortage. How troublesome.

I stuck the picture in my chest pocket, carefully. It was an artifact from some ancient time period, and I needed to preserve it, forever.

* * *

I shared a tent with Kimberly, and after awhile his frenzied giggling and eerie remarks did not bother me anymore. They became part of the routine, the disgusting food, the pale, bloody bodies of my friends, the ruined villages. 

I ignored him that night, until he took the letter from me. It was impossible to ignore him as he read it to me in a keening, fake voice. "Dear Roy," He cackled, "I'm sure you're having a great time out there, fighting the enemy."

"Give it back," I whispered.

"Dear Roy," he repeated, a fake croon in his voice. "Roy…baby…"

"Shut up," I snapped, attempting to snatch the paper from his hand. Embarrassment flooded my chest.

Kimberly stood up on his bed, giggling. "I miss you, Roy! Oh…lover…"

"He's not my lover!" I growled, the words coming out halfheartedly and painfully. For a brief moment my thoughts lingered on the gun in my belt.

"Then you won't mind if I do this!"

The letter exploded in mid-air.

* * *

The blonde girl's face haunted me, the one from the Rockbell's picture. I wandered the crumbling Ishbalian village. Scarred children, their stomachs enlarged and painful, peaked from behind buildings with half walls and no ceilings. 

I took one of their boys into my arms that night. I paid him. I paid him for his house, his family and now his body. He cried half the time, brave face struggling to hold up a pointless facade. I shut my eyes and in sinful pleasure moaned Maes' name into his ear, knowing Maes' body did not feel like this, knowing it did not quiver, thin and wasted, in my arms. Knowing Maes would take control. Knowing Maes would wrap me in his strong arms and hold me. I wanted him to hold me. Not tremble and whimper.

I came back to the camp, disgust and guilt invading my soul. Havoc asked me where I had been. I didn't answer. He let me go.

Two months later, I came home. Home wasn't home anymore, though. Home was a memory. A pointless dream. I wondered how I had ever fit in.


End file.
